Critical theories of communication

Course convenor

András Müllner

Course content

In this course students will become familiar with studies that explore different material conditions and means of communication.

Indicative reading

Letter, book, typewriter

Aleida Assmann: Texts, Traces, Trash. The Changing Media of Cultural Memory, Representations, No. 56. Special Issue: The New Erudition (Autumn, 1996), pp.123-134.
John Durham Peters: Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Herman Melville: Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street,
Martin Stingelin: Comments on a Ball: Nietzsche’s Play on the Typewriter, in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht – K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (eds.): Materialities of Communication, ford. William Whobrey, Stanford UP, Stanford, California, 1994, 70-82.

Radio, telephon

Wolfgang Hagen: „On the Minute”. Benjamin silent work for the German radio, interner: http://www.whagen.de/vortraege/2006/20061201Benjamin/OnTheMinute.pdf
Wolfgang Hagen: Artaud and the Serialization of Radio, internet: http://whagen.de/publications/2006/BremenArtaud/HagenEnglischFertig.htm; Illustration: Antonin Artaud: Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu, Hajas Tibor: Érintés (rádió-performansz) [Touch (Radio Performance)], Kossuth Rádió, Gondolatjel, 1979. február 4. Artpool Rádió 6.
Allen S. Weiss: Radio Icons, Short Circuits, Deep Schisms, TDR. The Drama Review/the Journal of Performance Studies, Vol 40. No. 3 (Fall 1996), 9-15.
Radio Play is No Place. A Conversation between Jérome Noetinger and Gregory Whitehead, TDR. The Drama Review/the Journal of Performance Studies, Vol 40. No. 3 (Fall 1996), 96-101.

Hypertext/interactivity

Seulemonde: Conversation with Geoffrey Bennington, internet: http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/Derrida/seule.html

Charlie Edwards: Ghost Phenomena: User Experiences of Place and Non-Place in Cyberspace. Paper presented at Critical Themes in Media Studies: Fourth Annual Graduate Conference, 2004.